A Day of Significance
by blackpond
Summary: Oswald's thoughts and actions on the night before the succession ceremony.


Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts nor do I hold any rights to it.

Occasionally, on some nights, late at night, Glen Baskerville would sneak out of the Baskerville estate without his guards, without a soul.

He told no one.

He'd use the secret passage, walking long enough until he was certain that no one was following him. Then he'd take one of the exits that led outside, savoring the cool fresh night's air hitting his face, stinging a little just as it's cold touch burnt his warm lungs slightly, making it hard to breath.

On these nights Glen knew with a disconcerting brush that what was guiding him was not Glen or even some past whim of _one_ of the Glens. What guided him on these nights was Oswald, his former self, the part of him that still cried out for attention, even at the most inconvenient or random of times, even on nights like these.

As he walked sometimes those old beings in his head would try to talk to him but mostly they would be quiet. They knew not to talk to him. He thought that sometimes they understood what was going on with him, what took hold of him, if his old Master's knowing smirk was any indication. Most of the time though, he feared the Glens, their voices, their desires, their knowledge and advice, they all threatened to swallow him.

When he was younger and had first touched that intellect, through the Raven, it had scared him. He had sensed something loathsome and foreboding. His body and mind screamed out danger. But a greater part of himself told him that he would survive it and the part of himself that was screaming out steeled himself on the fact that he must be brave and that there was Lacie. Lacie needed him. Him mastering this would save Lacie. He must be brave.

That was before he knew.

Now there was no more Lacie.

_And I am guiding someone else to that precipice a new_, he thought sullenly, his mind lingering on an inky black head of hair that he had checked on before going out.

And that head had been exactly where it should be: eyes closed and head on pillow, sound asleep and getting some much needed rest, after all he would need it.

Tomorrow was the succession ceremony.

After that the boy would start to change, just as he had.

What would happen to that intense love for his brother? Glen thought. Once he knew the truth where would it go? Would time and chains and Glen warp it out of him?

Glen didn't know, but he did know that he really liked his loyal little servant, had such a fond attachment to him.

Was that how his old Master had felt, when they walked down halls side by side and the older man would reach down and ruffle his hair?

Would this feeling of affection change as his servant grew a little older, became moody with new knowledge and grew formal right along with stiff steps taken behind his Master and to the right, quiet footsteps and cape draped form making him ghost like and other worldly?

Would his loyal earnest little servant who is cute and eager now change into someone serious and solemn (and, lacking a better word and as Lacie had said) uptight like he had?

How would he himself change (mentally of course because physically, except toward the very end, he'd remain the same)?

He thought of the little blonde child, Gilbert's brother.

He didn't check on him before he left. He didn't care for him much; after all he knew what would happen to him.

Why grow attached?

He left the estate with confidence.

Regardless they would be well-looked after tonight. Lottie was on guard duty. She always seemed dedicated even if easily excited…and ditzy.

Sometimes, as much as he had mixed feelings about his old Master, he suspected that he was slightly better than him, more prepared and well suited to being a Glen. After all his old Master dispensed with Baskervilles indifferently and yet still took the time to get attached to a child of misfortune.

He, as a Glen, did not do that.

When the little blonde came into the room he often left it and he only rarely took him places, only sometimes to see Jack though, and only with Gilbert around.

It was like he was afraid of him, like he was afraid of those beings in his head, but not nearly like he was afraid of Oswald, Oswald who prompted him to go out on a night like this and seek something.

He was walking out towards town. He had done this exact same thing dozens of times before, since he had become Glen, since Lacie was thrown into the Abyss, since he and Jack had started meeting alone, Lacie's diminished existence just hanging in between them.

If he remembered correctly it had been during that first month, the month following Lacie being thrown into the Abyss, the month where Jack disappeared, that he had first made _this_ journey.

At first he tried to convince himself that it was some weird, sick hazing initiated by one of _them_ (most likely his old Master). But then he came to see that what motivated him was himself, not as he was at that moment, but as he had been.

Why he would choose something so socially and morally deviant he did not know, but that appeared to be the case, his own will, which he attributed to what had to be his own sick and twisted mind and the fact that he was a man and had flesh as well as the impulses that followed flesh.

He had started going once, sometimes a couple times, a month to see a woman.

She lived in a questionable part of town, and as a consequence he would often arrange an alternative place for them to meet.

He had seen her on occasion before, when he was just Glen's servant. She would be in the market. She would be in other places. He would glance at her as he walked his couple of paces behind his Master.

At the time he just saw her and thought nothing of her beyond how she related to his Master in that moment. She didn't seem like much of a threat beyond possibly adding to his Master's already existent moral decay.

She had long dark hair with bangs that sometimes would hang in her eyes. She was petite, short and her…figure reminded him of Lacie's, as did her hair, as did her bone structure.

Her eyes were the difference though.

They were brown, chocolate brown, not red like Lacie's and he regretted this and was relieved by it all the same.

He supposed that if Lacie's eyes were going to be a normal color (if she hadn't been born with those ill omen eyes) then they most likely would've been violet like his, like Alice's.

He thought about Alice for a moment.

Now there was something that was only going to get harder as time went by.

She was going to look like Lacie. How hard for him. How much harder for Jack. That was why he was so reluctant to let Jack hang around Alice, because of that resemblance. It seemed like too much of a temptation. He'd have to keep an eye on that. For now their relationship seemed innocent and both were very fond of each other (or rather one version of Alice was) but what would happen to Jack's feelings when Alice crossed that thresh hold and began to _really_ resemble Lacie? Glen wasn't even sure what he himself would do or rather the part of him that was still Oswald.

And Jack, what did Jack plan to do?

He could never read Jack.

It was vexing.

Regardless though, the color of_ this_ woman's eyes did not really matter. He would tell her to close them anyway.

This woman, he knew, had a name, a name which he tried not to think about lest he be reminded that she was a person and start to feel guilty.

Her body was for rent.

At some point during that first month , that was when he started to rent her.

It was weird. He had never really had a terribly high sex drive. He had had thoughts of course, off thoughts and little sexual impulses that he did not entirely understand nor did he act on. If anything he saw sex as shameful and something to be avoided both about himself and others.

Around the time that he was 14 or 15 he had experimented with masturbation but found it bothersome and messy, regarding it as something which interfered with his work and so he endeavored not to do it. Therefore around the time when his 16th birthday took place and his Master decided to take him to a brothel in order to celebrate his continued progression into manhood Oswald had already come to the conclusion that such things were undesirable and therefore should be abstained from which is exactly what he did.

While his Master, if memory served him right, indulged in the services of two…ladies of the night, Oswald talked to the bartender and played cards with an elderly woman who had broken her foot.

Oswald did not consider this a bad birthday, on the contrary his birthdays were normally much worse.

At the time, as he watched the women of the brothel (and a few men) ply their trade, it had struck him as sad and degrading, for both client and prostitute.

Now, he no longer thought about it.

After that first dip he found it surprisingly easy to start…interactions with the woman and when finished simply pull on his clothes and lay the cash on the dresser.

Then he'd begin the walk home.

It was always a lonely walk, normally pretty peaceful. If he did run into one of the town's undesirables he just kept walking. They normally didn't bother him. He figured that there must have been something about his presence which kept them away.

Often on his walk home he wouldn't even think back to what he had done. The cold would distract him or the next day, a list of things that he had to do, of places he needed to go, things that he'd need to teach Gilbert, the thought that Jack might come over, all of these thoughts would just play out in his head and keep him from wondering why he would want to sleep with a woman who looked so much like Lacie, so much like his sister.

Or they would stop him from lingering too long on all the ways that this woman was _not_ like Lacie, the way that her voice was more gravely and less cheerful, the way that she lacked Lacie's grace and magnetism, the way that she dressed, the way that she was missing that odd sense of freedom that Lacie had seemed to embody even when she was anything but, all of those thoughts distracted him from these things. Otherwise he might have realized all of the things that this woman lacked compared to the real thing or he might have wondered about his own sickness and depravity at wanting…this thing that he was wanting.

The identity of "Glen" helped distract "Oswald" from the desires and thoughts and impulses that he would attempt to sate and yet that he found near unbearable to think about any more than in passing.

Yes, those were dangerous thoughts.

Kind of like how Jack was dangerous in a sense.

Jack was dangerous for so many reasons.

There was that unreadability, that sense of wrongness that had so disturbed Oswald when he first met Jack but now there were other things, too. Small things like Lord Nightray's words of warning, words that Glen hardly needed to hear, after all he was worried enough based on his original impressions of Jack.

Then there were the other things, another set of things that Oswald didn't like to look at but that he found easier to take apart and analyze.

First there was this feeling that he got around Jack. It was difficult to explain. It was kind of nice, almost comfortable but then there would come that shadow of a doubt that wrongness again and to a certain extent it would be ruined.

Then there were all of the times that he would catch himself looking at Jack, like _really looking_ at him. He had found that this happened to him quite a lot, but even a couple of months ago, too. He'd look at Lacie and he'd look at Jack and then there would be this feeling. Now there was just Jack and still there would be that feeling, that unnatural interest in the man's jawline, that butterflies- in-your-stomach feeling every time that he heard Jack laugh. There was even the most disconcerting eagerness and anticipation just in waiting for Jack's next words. It was hard to explain but he actually did care to hear what the man said even though sometimes Jack was a sunshiny irritant that he desperately wanted to guard against.

What was this feeling?

And then there were other times when he'd just be watching Jack play with Gilbert and that blonde child and it was just oddly nice, seeing him play with them and he would think to himself "Jack is a good man" and then he'd feel doubt, his own doubt and Lord Nightray's words and it would all catch in his head and spin round at a nauseating rate and somewhere in the middle of that he would wonder what these feelings were that he was having for Jack, a man, and that he was pretty sure that he should have for a woman, but not for Lacie, his sister, and why did those two emotions feel just so similar, his love for Lacie and his love for Jack?

_Am I a homosexual?_ He thought with mild concern.

He knew, not in a technical way, but a vague this-can-happen sort of way, that men did do things of a sexual nature together and harbored those kinds of feeling towards each other. He did not find a thing like this wrong and he knew that neither had his old Master nor did any past Glen but it still puzzled him, this feeling, because he really wasn't sure exactly what it was.

It might not be _that kind_ of feeling and there were many times where he longed to test it, to just lean over when Jack and him were one of their walks and Jack was talking non-stop about some frivolous matter and just kiss him, kiss his cheek, kiss his lips, just grab a hold of one side of his face and just turn Jack toward him and kiss him. Then he would know what those feelings were and how best to deal with them…Or maybe he'd just freak Jack out for no good reason and lose a friend forever.

And that would be a shame

There were also the social ramifications but in the end he wondered if that still mattered any more, with him being Glen and all.

Truly though, the factor that weighed on his mind was the idea that he'd offend Jack in some way and that would be the end of it. When Glen thought about it, satisfying his curious, slightly analytical mind with some cold but rash action like that, he soon realized that would never do. Besides Gilbert and that little blonde child would never forgive him if he made Jack go away and he'd admitted it that very night: He did not want to doubt Jack anymore. He too wanted to be Jack's friend.

And he meant those words.

There was just that small part of him that wondered if some part of him, that same deviant part that wanted Lacie too, also wanted Jack in the exact same manner.

But what would little Gilbert think if he saw him kissing Jack in the rose garden?

That would be the wrong kind of behavior to exhibit. Just wrong. It would never do.

Glen went on walking, long, powerful strides making his cloak flap as he walked.

He knew that in a few minutes he'd be within sight distance of town and unconsciously pulled the cloak up a bit closer, steeling himself for that harsh little mound of civilization, so full of troubles, so full of pain an d yet right on top of that were the happinesses and the pleasures. For a Baskerville who was used to living apart it was a bit much.

That's why he hated parties.

Civilization and society were a bit much for him both because he had gotten used to the quieter more cloistered life that he lived, away from the city and towns, in the Baskerville house and because of the many painful and unhappy memories that he had from his time living with Lacie on the streets.

Human cruelty repulsed him every bit as much as it fascinated Lacie who it seemed was capable of appreciating both the beautiful and repulsive natures of the ant like beings called humans.

Oswald didn't get that.

At times he was so disgusted by their depravity that he wanted nothing more than to flee. Then he would remember Lacie's words and would try to calm down. After all if Lacie could forget then so could he, after all most of the terrible things had happened to _her_ so how could he possibly complain?

The times that he found it too unbearable he would tell himself that his distance from the humans was out of caring, after all Baskervilles certainly did warp the lives of those around them, but even that at the end of the day was a weak excuse.

Once again his mind lingered on Jack.

He had started spending a lot of time with Jack of late. When he thought about it he had done the same when Laci e was alive but in Glen's mind he had always classified it as time spent _watching_ Lacie and Jack, being their chaperone and so convinced himself that this was not actual time spent socializing but was instead more of a duty. Now he supposed it kind of seemed like socializing.

He thought of Jack, Jack who chose to hang around Baskervilles despite the risks. There were others who did this of course though to a lesser degree, the Barmas, the Nightrays, but this was different.

They all seemed to be after something but Jack, who always came alone without his family, what was he after?

Before there was Lacie, but what about now?

Did he have a death wish?

Glen thought about all of the ways that Jack's life had been warped by being close to the Baskervilles.

There was the death of Lacie which he knew had wrecked Jack. He himself, Oswald, a Baskerville, was the cause of that.

Then before that there was the long list of things that Jack had stooped to in his pursuit to see Lacie again. Lacie, a Baskerville too, was the cause of that.

If he had never met Lacie he might not have experienced so much pain and hardship. But according to Jack and even Lacie's own account he most likely wouldn't have lived long after that.

Oswald and Lacie Baskerville had caused quite a bit of harm on Jack Vessalius's life.

Lacie was gone.

And yet still Jack was around.

What did that mean?

The other day he and Jack had taken a blanket and a picnic lunch to a meadow that they used to got to when Lacie was alive and with them. Jack had reminisced slightly. He had shown that he was sad. He didn't lie about that but then he turned around and offered him a strawberry. He made a few very funny and very true jokes about Lord Nightray that made it very hard not to laugh. He complimented the excellent chicken salad sandwiches from the Baskerville estate, joked about whether or not Lottie had made them ("with her delightful fingers" he had joked happily, licking some of the chicken salad off of one of his delicate, strong, well-groomed fingers) and then talked for a while about his family in muted tones which said a lot (something about his father, one of his brothers).

He became visibly down after that and things grew silent until he took an artless, languid sigh, that actually sounded kind of pretty, and started talking about what a beautiful day it was (and truly it had been a beautiful day, the sun was out, too white clouds that were billowy and fluffy against a too bright blue sky. There was a breeze that was just refreshing enough without being overly so. It was beautiful).

He went on to talk about the boys and how they were fairing. They talked about them for a while.

Slowly Glen found himself pulled a long by the stream of conversation and at some point, and Glen could no longer remember when or even what they were talking about, Jack became seized by something that he thought was very funny and that Glen, too, also thought was very funny but that he didn't want to admit to finding so.

Jack had caught him in this however and refused to let it go.

"It's bad to keep it in." He had joked, still laughing and smiling. "You'll die for certain, or worse yet it will come out at inappropriate times. Imagine. At some boring Nightray dinner party, when Arthur is bringing up some very vital cultural point." He stopped and just looked at Glen. "During important Baskerville business."

It wasn't necessarily what he said but the way in which he said it and slowly a small smile crept across Glen's face and he looked down.

"I don't know what to say."

"Why say a thing? Just laugh, laugh. You're so close."

And at that moment Jack had grabbed a hold of his shoulders and shook him a bit and though the movement seemed to Glen a bit intimate in nature (something which was slightly typical of Jack and that Glen had always secretly attributed to Jack's being a whore and therefore doing something which, though at some point may have been a pick-up move, was now no more so and done meaninglessly, without the slightest bit of consciousness). Glen finally gave in and smiled a little wider which eventually turned into laughter, a kind of laughter that he had not experienced since he was Oswald and still a child, and maybe not even then.

Jack, finally sated, leaned his head against Glen's shoulder, still laughing weakly and something about the gesture…

Glen felt a distinct stirring where there diffidently should not have been and immediately choked on his laugh, the sheer shock causing him to lose his balance and fall to his side, Jack going down right along with him.

The new position just made it worse and Glen, very quickly, jerked his body away, taking away Jack's cushion.

Jack's head thunked into the ground. Jack just laughed and rubbed his head.

"Ow! Glen that hurt a little." He looked over at him. "You took away my pillow."

And there it was again, this odd feeling being roused within him, that distinct stirring increasing and Glen would be damned if there wasn't something just…sexual about Jack in general, whether he meant for it to be or not, and Glen thought not, that it just kind of came out that way and Glen had the off little thought that it's probably that very quality which would make Jack such a damnably good little whore, that innocence mingled with that_ not_ innocence.

After that Glen had sat very awkwardly and prayed for that stirring and its "proof" to go away and it did, leaving Glen to believe that Jack was none the wiser.

Looking back on it, it had only been a slight stirring, and really hardly noticeable but for a long time after Glen had spent a considerable amount of time pondering it.

What did it mean?

And what did it mean that though the entire event had troubled him so much, he had also enjoyed it a lot and in some very weird way wanted it to happen again?

He had spent a good long while contemplating those green eyes and pale skin and the way that Jack looked slightly tousled and the breeze seemed to so perfectly toy with a few loose strands of golden hair and the collar of his shirt.

The image reminded him of a scene that he had witnessed a thousand times (though he knew honestly less) with Lacie, in which Lacie would shove Jack over at unexpected times when she thought that Jack's powers of comprehension were sufficiently dulled under her sway.

They would both be laughing, her and Jack, and down Jack would go with one playful shove from her.

She'd smirk.

"Jack, whatever happened." Then she'd holler over her shoulder to Oswald. "Nii-sama, my cute little Jack has fallen for me again. Perhaps you should help him up."

And she'd turn away and eat a strawberry.

Jack would just smile, bleary eyed and that laugh normally followed close behind.

"Well, I have indeed fallen." He would say quietly, under his breath and leaving no doubt in Oswald's mind that he did not intend for anyone to hear it, what with the wind blowing and a distant bird chirping it's happy song, Lacie distracted and Jack, Oswald was sure, supposing that he had no interest in the blonde man's words, but he did have an interest and he also had excellent hearing so he heard them all.

Oswald would walk over sullenly and offer his hand. Jack would again smile that easy (but Oswald often thought unreadable) smile and reach up for it, saying a bit louder.

"Thank you Oswald."

By this time Lacie would have had enough time to gather some random thoughts together and therefore suck them into conversation. At times it amazed Oswald how easy he would go.

What was it?

Glen so often wondered what it was about these times that so preoccupied and fascinated "Oswald" or at least the part of Oswald that was still in him. What was it about those two beings, Lacie and Jack, that had him raking through his mind and running back to memories of the three of them that served as such a comfort and such a curse?

Why did it make him shove down every ill thought and suspicion that he (and others) had about a man of such questionable standing and that so plainly had every reason to hate him?

Why did it leave him roaming the empty streets of a town on a night like this looking for a comfort that he shouldn't and that he had never desired before?

I mean he should be in bed for god's sake not knocking on this questionable door.

What was it about the existences of Lacie Baskerville and Jack Vessalius that made a part of him forgo taboo and let go of deep seeded gut feelings?

Thoughts of shame about incest and deep doubts were no match against "Oswald's" strong preoccupation with _them_.

Why?

The girl that was _not_ Lacie answered the door.

Yes, not Lacie indeed.

He quickly pulled her into a kiss, shoving her up against a wall and shutting the door deftly.

Is it because those were the two people that had so heavily occupied "Oswald's" world in those last few months of his complete consciousness?

He wondered, desperate to make the distinction between the "him" of _now_ and the "him" of _before_ in hopes of being able to better fool himself that he was under the influence of something and that that something was _not him_.

He had spent so much time with Lacie and Jack and yet he had also spent a lot of time with Revis in his life and he had never felt this way about Revis (only that one time when he'd been young and very drunk and _only _that one time).

No, the feelings that "Oswald" harbored for Lacie and Jack were very different.

They were so _centered_. They felt so unshakable. He felt so helpless to them.

Why them?

He reached his hand underneath the girl's skirts and her legs spread eagerly for him.

A few months ago he would have been disgusted with himself for this. But now? He hardly even felt it.

He pulled away and whispered in her ear.

"Close your eyes."

She obeyed immediately.

She knew this about him and though she found it strange she had had stranger requests and he paid double her typical rate plus a retainer on the condition that she only sleep with him. She agreed to the terms and asked no questions for which Glen was grateful.

Though he had to admit he had never done it quite like this before. No pleasantries and not even going to the bed before taking her up against the wall and slipping two long, slender fingers in her, eager just to be inside…._something_.

It was because of his thoughts.

He was analyzing this too much. Normally he tried to abstain from analyzing this particular subject too much. He needed a little distraction and in all honesty all that his thoughts had accomplished was rousing him to a state like this, a little desperate and like an animal just longing for release and the first thing to distract him gaining all of his attention.

_Is that why Jack is the way that he is?_ He wondered.

He was such a hare brain. Perhaps it was just to distract him from unhappy things, how much he was hurting…Lacie's death.

He heard the woman moan and quickly amended.

"Shh, shhh, shh…No talking, no sounds." He said breathlessly as he pinned her to the wall, one of his hands reaching down eagerly to unbutton his trousers, pull apart the laces and free himself of a fabric that had grown far too confining.

If he heard her moan he'd be reminded that this woman was not Lacie, was not Jack, was not anything that he wanted, that his entire life really wasn't anything that he wanted.

His life wasn't even his, not really. It belonged to Glen and every other Glen to come…forever.

He felt his slightly chilled hand grasp a hold of his too hot erection, warm and stiff, a little rosy and pink tinted from all of that blood rushing there and pooling, dark coarse hair covering him in curls around his base and occasionally more undecided strands that were straighter and stuck out at odd angles, a funny trait for a man with multiple men in his head and who felt that he had two loves, neither of which he would ever allow himself to have.

He sighed as the stale air grazed across him and his breath hitched as he smeared the droplet of come on his tip.

He had worked three fingers into the woman and now he withdrew them, looking at this woman in front of him with her eyes closed.

He took one of his hands and gently stroked the face so like Lacie's, so much like his dead sister's, that it hurt.

_I killed her_, he thought bitterly. _I and the Abyss killed her._

When this woman's eyes were closed it really was like Lacie was back.

He thought absently that if Jack ever saw this woman he'd most likely lose it entirely.

He stroked her cheek and brushed some of that long dark hair behind her ear.

He let out a breath that he hadn't realized that he was holding and grabbed her waist, moving closer. She wrapped her legs around him as his body pinned her firmly against the wall. His face was buried in her hair and in her neck and like this he really could pretend that it was Lacie.

Her neck and hair really were similar.

She smelled different. This woman did not smell like Lacie, but if he looked past that it was exactly like her.

He closed his eyes, feeling soft hair brush his face. He savored it, that illusion. He kissed her neck softly, reverently.

"Lacie." He whispered so quietly, so softly, the way that Jack whispered, hoping that no one else would hear it.

He let his lips linger there.

He thought of Lacie's voice ringing out over a meadow as she talked to him and Jack over her shoulder as she walked in front of them, telling them something. He thought of her lovely singing voice ringing out so clearly, so bright and pleasant sounding. There was that night on the stairs when Lacie told him not to worry, told him how much she loved this cruel world and allowed him to just rest his head weakly on her chest.

_She_ was comforting _him_ when she shouldn't have been.

He thought of Jack when he first saw him, long ago at a party, Jack's face after throwing a glass of water at him. He thought about how Jack looked at Lacie and how Jack looked at him those times when he offered him a hand. He thought of Jack with Gilbert and the child of ill omen, of how kind he seemed and Jack, that day when it was just the two of them in that meadow, breeze blowing through his hair and that shirt collar.

Jack really did have such a nice neck, a delicate Adam's apple.

Then he thought of the very last time that Lacie addressed him just before he sent her in to the Abyss.

"Nii-sama." Echoed in his mind along with that hard to decipher look on her face and that delicate body wrapped tightly with chains.

_And she was pregnant_, he thought dully, with a fast numbing mind.

In his mind's eye he saw Jack the day that he told him that Lacie was dead.

He thought of that day that Jack had offered out his hand, proposed that they could find Lacie together, bring her back together.

He had slapped that hand away and for a second Jack looked so traumatized and he remembered yelling but he didn't know why.

Where did Glen end and Oswald begin?

After a few seconds Jack had just smiled self-deprecatingly and dismissed his idea as a moment of insanity.

_And these are people that I supposedly care about_, he thought. _I am a Baskerville indeed. I warp everything and everybody._ He paused in thought. _Especially the people that I care about._

These thoughts brought Glen back to the here and now.

He carefully withdrew from this woman's neck and, while supporting her, abruptly spread her and left them barely joined as he removed his hand and with one violent thrust plunged himself deep into her, no longer caring to correct her as she let out a slight sound of shock at the sudden and abrupt intrusion.

Glen pulled out slightly, hands firmly on her hips and then plunged back in.

She groaned.

He let out a slight grunt at the sensation as his mind was busy recreating images of Jack, of Lacie.

He closed his eyes and repeated it, pushing and pulling, in and out in jerking movements towards a release that he knew he needed but that he did not feel that he deserved.

He thought of Lacie. He thought of Jack. He thought about his obsession with the two of them. _Oswald's_ obsession with the two of them.

And he knew that she was just a portal to the two of them and he didn't care.

He needed that portal.

"Oswald" needed that portal.

He began to feel himself getting closer and closer to spilling himself and he started to ease himself into it, adjusting his speed and position, bruising the woman's hips in his urgency and not being of the mind to care or even have any regard for her by way of her progress toward _her _climax, as he might normally have done.

Instead he thought of how he needed to relieve himself of this physical urge so that he could hurry up, pay the woman and leave.

After all he had a long and important day ahead of him.

Tomorrow would be a big day, a significant day, and he knew that he needed to be prepared for it, the duties which Glen bared and which "Oswald" so eagerly buried himself in, in order to forget the things that he otherwise couldn't bare about himself, about others, about what he himself wanted.

As he walked home that night he thought to himself that _now_ he was prepared.

-M. Palovna


End file.
